SIR GEORGE GREY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 58, Issue 4195, 12 June 1939, Page 3

SIR GEORGE GREY

A TE AW'AMUTU VIEWPOINT. POLITICS OF SIXTY YEARS AGO. A glimpse of the current politics of the year 1880 and the atmosphere in which they were conducted is provided by the Te Awamutu Chronicle and Waipa Observer, from whose first issue, dated 24th May of that year, the following sub-leader is taken:—/ If Sir George Grey were not the sensible man he is his head would have been turned long since by the fulsome adulation of his obsequious henchmen. These toadies would fain persuade us that Sir George is a heaven-born statesman, and they accredit him with a species of infallibility in things temporal which are strangely at variance with his political achievements. Like our own old horse, Sir George has his good points and his bad ones. He is a terror for buck-jumping ami having his own way when he feels the reins slack; but so long as there is no chance of unhitching you he is gentle and goes well. Sir George feels both curb and ; rein now, so he behaves himself. He even finds it convenient to be ailingin order that he may keep quiet without being thought incapable of kicking out of the Premier’s harness. Sir George knows the price of a man to a copper, and though he may not want him at all ho will just buy him to keep him off the market. It may truly be predicted of Sir George Grey that “ the evil he has done shall live after him, while the good will be interred with his bones-” The political tyranny, jobbery, and corruption which he and his colleagues introduced on the stage of New Zealand politics is too deep-rooted an evil'to be eradicated for many years to come—we fear not until the present generation has passed away. That he has accomplished much good we arc prepared to admit; but that every good action was born of selfish motives few of our readers will deny. We hear it frequently advanced in his favour that Sir George is a rich man, and that it is his large-hearted humanity which prompts him to seek political influence. We believe it is no such thing. It is an insatiable ambition—an ambition uncontrollable as that which brought the first Napoleon to end his days a prisoner on the lonely rock of St. Helena, and which caused the conqueror Alexander to weep like a woman when he had no more worlds to conquer. We are told continually, and the words are emphasised to enforce the conviction. that Sir George Grey is a great man. We admit that he is a great man—very great, tremendously great. So was Nero great; so'was Sir Robert Walpole; so was Herod the Cruel, who had such a fancy for slaying male children. All these were great in their way, and so is our K.C.B. in his. What a heaven New Zealand would be now if Sir George Grey had fulfilled one third of his promises. It is a long time since we learned to think so lightly of Sir George’s word as he evidently thinks of it himself. But we have said that, on the whole, Sir George is a sensible old chap, and wc repeat that he is. ‘ He is. too sensible to believe that he is half as clever as the people take him to be. His own opinion might be that he is an old Grey goose, grown silly with moulting. and he may possibly regard his colleagues as so many unfledged goslings. But one after another these young geese depart as soon as fully fledged, and the poor parent bird is left alone to buffet with the streamWe do not believe in the barbarous custom of kicking a man when he is down, simply because there is foul advantage in it. If Sir George Grey were Premier this very minute, or even Governor, which would please him better, we would write what we have written. We will give honour to whom honour is due—censure those who deserve censure—and we will have our say about everybody from a K.C.B. down to a chimney sweep. Never perhaps has the Auckland provincial press truckled so long to a man as it has truckled to Sir George Grey. He has been their political idol, and though that idol is now broken in its own temple there are st;’l one or two organically-diseased journals to cry his virtues and adore his creed. Even his own dear Punch is now punching Sir George, whose whisky punches, we suppose, no longer awake its wit and humour. Since ‘the above was. written we understand Sir George has suddenly recovered from his indisposition, and has actually left the solitudes of Kawau, prepared with a number of declamatory speeches for the grand stumping tour of the Colony. Well done, Sir George ! The Kawau is just the place to inspire stump orators.